We should have the same desire expressed by Sir John A MacDonald to Queen
Victoria, the Mother of Confederation, "to live under the sovereignty
of Your Majesty and your family for ever."
A Christian Monarchist Canadian Tory Blog

Sunday, March 04, 2012

Apparently integrity is not a warmest value. Many of the hoaxsters have defended a man who admits lying and betraying his own "values". Lori Goldstein has a great piece on the liar gleick.
Question: If a world-famous climate scientist lied to obtain documents fraudulently, would he lie about other things? Like his research?
It’s a reasonable question to ask in light of the ongoing controversy over the recent public confession of prominent U.S. climate scientist and water expert Peter Gleick.
Gleick is now on temporary leave from the presidency of California’s Pacific Institute, which he co-founded, after admitting he lied about his identity in order to obtain internal documents from the climate skeptical Heartland Institute (Gleick calls them climate deniers) based in Chicago.
He’s also resigned, somewhat ironically, from the chairmanship of the American Geophysical Union’s task force on scientific ethics.
Gleick said he posed as a member of the Heartland board of directors to obtain the documents and expose what he described as its campaign to falsely discredit climate science.
Gleick apologized for what he called “a serious lapse of my own and professional judgment and ethics.”
But he’s also defended his actions by arguing he was driven to them by well-funded, co-ordinated and often anonymous attacks on climate science. He’s also thanked supporters in the ensuing controversy for their support, so his apology is a qualified one.
To be fair, Gleik’s never been accused of misrepresenting his scientific research, as far as I can determine.
But as any lawyer will tell you, once a witness is caught in a lie on the stand, all of his testimony becomes suspect, not just that directly related to the lie.